ACURA CL H22A SWAP

What's up people, I am new to this joint and I have already seen a lot more useful information, than HPOA.org, or hondaaccord.com. Any how, I am doing this swap myself with a mechanic that is pretty damn good, but when it comes to Hondas I don't think he has much experience. Correct me if I am wrong please. From all the research that I have gathered, I have to use my F22 harness on the h22a. I plug as many harnesses as I can in, the left over ones I take from the h22a harness and add them to the f22 harness. I took the wiring explination off h22a.org because they tell you exactly what wires to add and where they are located. Do I need to worry about the distributer? I have read that this is the most mind boggling part. Is there an easy sure fire way to get this right? Well I am sure you guys are tired of answering the same questions, but after a while all this information starts running together. Thanks for your help in advance.

You pretty much have it. Add new wires, lengthen some, trade exhaust, switch ecu's. I read what H22A.org had before my swap, and post-swap I'm not impressed. We can give you a lot more specific info than that site, but it is helpful as a starting point.

Tab, first off thanks for the reply and you have given a lot of helpful information. I am printing the wiring diagrams that you have graciously put on your site so I can use them as a refrence point. My car came with the VTEC f22 and I purchased a 93 JDM prelude front clip so I am of course switching over to an h22a and converting over to manual. If you can think of anything that would help me out during this wiring process, I would appreciate it, but from what you said to another dude about "making it harder than what it was" I started thinking about it in the more simple sense so I am gonna go at today after work and hopefully have everything up and running by tomorrow. If you wanna see pics goto http://www.wam.umd.edu/~pbrown/engineswap.html

When wiring to the ECU, look at the pinout for your car. It took me a while to figure out where D3 on a harness is. Trying to count holes is fine, but you need a starting reference point. Enter stock pinout. I looked at the pinout for my ECU, and I found it was much easier to find the corresponding colored wires to either side than it was to count holes.

EX. (not real colors)

If I were looking for d16, I would look at my pinout to find a brown/white and a yellow/black to either side. The spot that I want is between those, ok. Next wire, etc.

I looked at your pics. I think you'll be fine. You have almost everything imaginable.

Your new exhaust should line up pretty close if not perfectly to your catalytic converter. My new prelude header bolted to my Accord cat no problem.

Use the new Power steering hose, bend around the metal end as needed.

I know you have a full harness, but using it would suck bad. Just use the plug ends that you need, and modify the F22 Harness. That JDM harness is right hand(wrong side), and it wouldn't plug into your firewall harness. Even if you used the harness all the way to the ECU, you'd have to change the chassis harness.
IE: It's much easier to modify the stock shit.

You can use your stock accessories(alternator and AC Pump), but you may have to swap the AC bracket that mounts to the F22. They are just SLIGHTLY different. If your belts don't line up, swap the brackets. I suggest you test fit the shit while it's out of the car. Use the stock Power Steering pump with new hose^^^^. I also had to buy a new belt. Some of the accessories had four grooves, one or more had five grooves. Common denominator, four grooves.
*I kept ALL of my accessories. PS, AC, Cruise, everything.

I think you have to frankenstein the transmission mount also.

There might be one wire to connect to your new internal distributor, unless your car had the same plug. If you get stuck, post.

If you are feeling crafty, you could run your "New" wires to the four main plugs on your wheel well. From there, you could add a couple pins to the empty slots, then continue the wire out the other side to the ecu. This way, your engine would remain plug and play if you needed to remove it in the future. Still, running the wires straight is fine.